Re: removable setting


I want to remove a "Hot Swappable" drive as if it was a USB memory stick

--Tony



Todd (or Tony):
First of all, don't be too concerned about potential responders to your query (whatever it might be) "go(ing) off on a tangent". It's really best to provide as much relevant & detailed information as you can re your problem and objective(s) together with the specifics of the software and/or hardware involved. Frankly, it's when the poster *doesn't* provide this kind of information that causes the responders to "go off on a tangent".

Anyway, back to your problem...

If your SATA HD has been designated by its manufacturer that it has "hot-swappable" (more precisely, "hot-pluggable") capability, *and* its controller provides similar capability, then the drive is hot-pluggable in the sense that you can connect or disconnect the drive while the system is running without data loss or corruption or damage to the drive. While there's no need to access Device Manager or other internal XP process, the user should check his/her BIOS to determine if there's any element that bears on hot-plugging (hot-swapping) and set that element accordingly.

In addition to the preceding, the SATA specifications for "hot-plugging" call for:
1. Power to the SATA HD be through its 15-pin SATA power connector and *not* the Molex connector, and,
2. That the power and signal/data cables be *simultaneously* connected/disconnected.
It would seem that the only practical way this could be achieved is through the use of mobile racks designed for SATA HDs whereby the removable tray can simply be inserted or removed in the rack to effect these simultaneous connects/disconnects.

One other consideration...
SATA native hot plug as defined by the specification requires the use of the 15-pin SATA power connector, *not* the 4-pin Molex power plug commonly used to connect IDE devices and frequently found on SATA HDs alongside the SATA power connector. Furthermore, the specification also calls for a requirement that the power signal cables be connected/disconnected *simultaneously* in order for native SATA hot plugging to be supported. (In our case, we accomplish this by mounting the external SATA HDs in the removable tray/caddy in mobile racks so a simple push or pull on the removable tray's handle simultaneously connects/disconnects both the power/signal cables.)

I have to admit that every SATA-IO HD (the 3 Gb/s data transfer interface) that we've worked with for nearly a year now (including WD, Hitachi, Samsung, and Seagate, all SATA-IO drives) has proven to be hot-pluggable. I would add that in many instances while experimenting with the hot-plugging capability of the afore-mentioned SATA drives while they were connected as external devices, we've connected/disconnected the drives without regard to any simultaneous connection or disconnection of the data & power connectors and we suffered no ill effects that we're aware of in terms of data loss/corruption or damage to the drives. At least none to date. Even in cases where the SATA HD received its power through the Molex plug we didn't run into any problems, but we really did not do extensive testing using that
configuration. In nearly every case power was applied to the SATA HD though its 15-pin power connector.
Anna


Hi Anna,

Although you did not answer the question, I do appreciate your
detailed explanation of how things work. Do you know the answer?
If it helps, here is a more detailed description of my system:

My system is also multiboot. My backup drive, the one in question
here, has all the gismos needed to pull it in and out (hot swap
carrier, hot swap adapter). As a matter of fact, it is very easy to
remove and swap drives under Cent OS 4.1 (Linux).

To remove:
umount /backup
turn the key off and pull the drive out of the carrier

To mount:
insert the drive and turn the key on
mount /backup

It is a total pain in the *** to have to power off W2K-Pro and
XP-Pro to swap the drive.

What I want is for this drive to act as a removable drive,
like a USB memory stick. That way I can click on the removable
drive ejector in the task bar and tell it to eject my removable
drive. W98 had such a setting in device manager. It seems to
have disappeared in W2K & XP. (P.S., I suspect that "removable"
can be forced as a registry setting, but ...)

--Todd
.